I have a pilot 188, loaded ~ 1:1. Have been spending a lot of time getting familiar with it (and I like it alot). It seems to behave fine (flies straight with no input; toggle turns are responsive; seems to flare fine, etc). One minor issue is that I think my brake lines are a bit long: probably ~8 inches of play before they get engaged. Fully extended I can't stall the canopy (but it can fly really slow). I may get them adjusted in the future.

The other issue is I am not able to get the thing to turn on front risers. Not because I can't pull them down (that's not a problem), but it doesn't seem to do anything when I do so other than just speed up the whole canopy. Okay, maybe it turns a little bit, really slowly; more of a very slow drift in one direction starting well after I hold a riser down for a while. Pulling both fronts down clearly gets it diving immediately, and it picks up a lot of speed.

Any thoughts as to what might be the issue? I really don't have a clue.

(And could the loose brake lines be related? Somewhat as an aside: I tried to predict what front risers would do before I did them back in my AFF days, and my predictions was wrong: I thought the change in the canopy pitch on one side would have it go opposite to a rear riser pull, and I still don't know understand why it also turns the same way. (I mean, why would a both an increase *and* a decrease in the canopy pitch on one side lead to the turn in the same direction?) Makes me think that perhaps a front riser turn requires at least a bit of brake engagement (or is helped by it) and my brakes are so loose that they never get involved. Anyway, that's just my ignorant speculation.)

Pull it down further and for longer. It may even take two hands, and you want to grab the riser near the top (in the dive loop if equipped) and pull down until your hands are in the neighborhood of your nipple. Keep your hands close to your body for increased leverage and honk down on that thing.

WL and canopy size will effect the responsiveness of the risers. A bigger canopy at a lower WL will need a lot of input for a little output.

Also, your brake lines are not a factor. Short brake lines can effect risers turns, but for the worse, not better. Riser turns get the canopy diving and increasing speed, and short brake lines will have you applying brakes at the same time you're pulling the riser. It gets very confusing for the canopy, and causes it to buck.

About your steering lines, have them adjusted before your next jump. It only takes 5 or 10 min for a rigger to adjust the lowers. Have 2 inches taken out, and see where the stall it. Ideally, you're looking for a stall after holding the toggles at full arms extension for a few seconds (2 or 3). If it stalls higher than that, or quicker than that, have an inch added back to the brake lines. if it still won't stall, take out another 2 inches, and repeat the process until it's right.

If you can't stall the canopy, you're giving up bottom end on landing. Might not make a difference if there's a little wind or lower temps, but when it gets hot and the air stands still, you want every ounce of 'slow' you can get. Worst case scenario, you need to 'panic flare', or try to reduce the force of an impact, again, you'll want everything the canopy has to offer.

Who knows, your next jump might be the 'worst case', get it fixed. Never be willig to accept parachute equipment that is not maintained, assembled and set-up 100% correctly.

Pull it down further and for longer. It may even take two hands, and you want to grab the riser near the top (in the dive loop if equipped) and pull down until your hands are in the neighborhood of your nipple. Keep your hands close to your body for increased leverage and honk down on that thing.

Ah, then that would 'splain it. On student rigs getting it down 6-8 inches would generally get the canopy turning (but they were hard to pull without a loop so I probably never exceeded that), and I'm sure I was only going about the same distance on my own rig. Next time I'll get em down a lot lower and see how they work.

Pull it down further and for longer. It may even take two hands, and you want to grab the riser near the top (in the dive loop if equipped) and pull down until your hands are in the neighborhood of your nipple. Keep your hands close to your body for increased leverage and honk down on that thing.

Ah, then that would 'splain it. ... Next time I'll get em down a lot lower and see how they work.

Yup, that did it! I just wasn't pulling far enough. Even just pulling down to my ear level gets it in a nice hard smooth turn. Completely different feel and behavior than on a student rig. I now have a whole new area of flight to explore. Thanks for the advice.